When Faith Falls
by PeaceOnMe
Summary: After his mother dies and his father is arrested, ten-year-old Lex Luthor starts living at the Wayne Manor. The story follows the relationship between Lex and Bruce Wayne through the years until the events of Batman v Superman.
1. Chapter 1

Lex opened his eyes. The first light of the morning filtered through the curtains. A cool breeze entering the room, through the slightly opened window. And how big the windows are in the Wayne Manor. The fresh air of the first days of autumn tangled his hair, and he felt chills going through his body. He should get up and close the window, but he just can´t find the strength - or the will - to do that.

It had been a month since he was living there. The other children who Mr. Wayne brought to live there were orphans - sons and daughters of criminals, or sons and daughters of people killed by criminals. (It seemed like most people in Gotham were connected to crime.) But Lex wasn´t an orphan. Not entirely. His mother was dead. His father was in prison. He was alone, and Bruce Wayne took him in to be one of his proteges.

He was one of the oldest there. The older ones would often run away. To be criminals most likely, Lex thought. It was the Gotham in them. The ones who stayed would eventually leave to college and make a living elsewhere. Lex had no intention of running away or going anywhere. He would rather stay in bed until the world would fade away.

At ten years old, Lex was the sole heir to the Luthor empire - LexCorp Industries. Mr. Wayne had promised to teach him and to help with everything he needed to know to be in front of a multimillionaire company - and Mr. Wayne knew everything about that. His parents died when he was twelve, Alfred Pennyworth, his manservant, taught him everything, and Bruce Wayne became head of Wayne Enterprises when he turned eighteen. And now he was gonna teach him. And now the circle would be complete. And in the future Lex could teach someone. And so on… And so on…

He dismissed that thought. He didn´t want to learn anything. He didn´t want to lead a massive company. He didn't want anything, really.

"You're the only one left, Jr.. Don't ruin it." Lex shook his head to disperse the last words his father said to him, before the guards took him in. He could do nothing. It was already ruined.

In all the thirty days since he was in that house, he only left his room for meals. He barely knew the other kids, only that they were loud and were always running around. Now that school had started, the house was quiet during the day. Lex would have to return to school in a couple days. "You can rest for a while, and when you feel ready, you can come back." Those were his school counselor's words to him. She gave him a deadline, and the time was up.

He wasn't ready.

After Alfred served him breakfast, Lex was about to go upstairs. One hand fell on his shoulder. He turned. The manservant was standing above him with a stern look on his face. Lex felt - since day one - that Alfred didn't trust him, like he knew something was off about Lex.

"Master Luthor, your new school books are in the library. I hope you have finished all the homework your classmates have sent to you."

Lex thought of all the papers and notebooks huddled on his desk. He didn't even read them. Didn't even look at them.

"I'm working on them right now, Alfred. Thank you." Lex turned his back immediately to him so he didn't have to look at his face. He knew he didn't believe him. Lex was too familiar with what would happen if he was a disappointment. He felt the rage of this father too many times.

Lex went to the library to get the books. It wasn't as rich as his own, back at the Luthor mansion in Metropolis. Here, the books were all old and dusty. It didn't seem like Mr. Wayne had acquired any new books in the last few years.

A movement caught his eye. He looked outside the window. A dark figure was wandering outside, in the dried up fields that surrounded the Wayne Manor in this time of year. A more attentive look showed him it was Bruce Wayne. He was wearing an expensive-looking coat that fit him like it was made just for him. It probably was. Alexander Luthor would approve. Lex didn't care. He didn't want to wear a suit and tie. But it was expected of him, he had no doubt.

There had been a month since he had been outside. Lex decided to follow Mr. Wayne, jumping out the floor-leveled window. The fresh hair brushed his pale skin. The sunlight burnt his eyes at first, until the landscape took shape in front of him. Fields without end, trees here and there, until the the forest turned dense.

Bruce Wayne's brown hair, usually combed to perfection, was swaying in the wind. His eyes, that had received him his his house with nothing but kindness, were focused on a point ahead, that Lex couldn't quite grasp yet. It wasn´t until he was closer that Lex spotted the flowers on his hand. Roses, orchids, daisies. All colorful, all shiny in the sun.

Mr. Wayne was headed to a small cottage. No… Not a cottage… It was a crypt, a burial chamber. Lex stopped on his heels. Suddenly the air seemed hard to breath, or his lungs weren't cooperating. He felt his knees hit the ground. He was being silly. It was just a tomb. His mother didn't have a tomb. Her ashes laid somewhere at his mansion, he didn't even cast a glance at them before he left.

He must have blacked out for a while, because when his eyes regained sight, Bruce Wayne was standing over him, a concerned, confused look on his face. He must have heard him fall. Lex scrambled to his feet, Mr. Wayne put a hand on his shoulder to help him from falling again.

"Lex, what are you doing here? Are you feeling okay?" His tone was sympathetic, but Lex could hear the concealed vexation on his voice.

Lex felt a wave of panic rising in his chest. He nodded and started running to the Manor, without looking back. When he was halfway there he could still hear Mr. Wayne calling his name.

Bruce was sitting at the hearing of Alexander Luthor. He presided at one of the main partners of Wayne Enterprises, LexCorp Industries. He would be in prison for the rest of his life for the murder of his wife. Bruce still couldn't grasp that idea. His father loved his mother, and his mother loved his father. They would never do that to each other.

He was twelve when they died. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't remember… But how he wished he could forget. His days were grey, and with every sun that rose, there was a mask he had to put on. The pain would never leave him.

He glanced at Lex, Luthor's son. His long blonde hair covered half of his face, but Bruce could still see his piercing blue eyes fixated in a point in front of him. He didn't look at his father when he made his statement, or when his sentence was read. It was only when the cops took him and he howled at is son "You're the only one left, Jr. Don't ruin it." - that he lifted his gaze toward him, like the world just fell down on him. The kid had lost his family, just like Bruce. Lex was alone. And Bruce stepped in. After all, who would be better than one heir to teach another heir to lead a multimillionaire company, to keep a legacy alive, to put on a mask everyday…

One night, Bruce was walking to his room, when he heard him. Lex was crying in his room. he knocked on his door, but he didn't answer, so he entered anyway. The kid was curled up in bed, grasping the sheets on his hands, his hair sticking to his damped face because of the tears. His sobs were echoing in the corridor, so he closed the door behind and started walking towards him.

"Lex… What happened?" The moment he said those words, he regretted them. "Lex…" He sat on the bed next to him, and put a hand on his shoulder. The kid stood up, trembling away from him, a scared look on his eyes, and tears still rolling down his cheeks.

"Lex… It's just me. You don't have to be afraid." But he was afraid. The kid hadn't said a word in his father's trial. Whatever happened, had been happening for a while, probably even before he was born. And he witnessed it, even though he didn't say a word, which could only mean his mother wasn't the only victim. And he was still afraid. And looking at him there, in front of him, Bruce wished he could do something about it, but he was also afraid. Since the day his parents died, a lurking feeling of uneasiness, of powerlessness had consumed him. And all he did was go to school, until he was old enough to take the lead at Wayne Enterprises, his parents legacy, that he had to keep alive for the sake of his city. But he was just a kid too, after all. And fear was a constant in his life.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne. It was just a nightmare." Lex looked away at the walls of his room. Bruce managed a smile. Nightmares weren't strange to him.

"It will pass." A lie. "Come here." Bruce didn't know what else to say. He pushed the kid to him and hugged him. He clung on his shirt with his wrists closed, sobbing against his chest. Bruce stroked his back until he calmed down. "Now get some sleep." Lex pulled away from him, his eyes piercing him, as if some kind of understanding had dawn on him.

Without another word, Lex laid back in bed, Bruce covered him with his blanket, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Eight years. It had been eight years to this day since his parents were murdered. And every single year, he would go to the city to buy some flowers. It was the least he could do. And after walking down to the crypt, putting the flowers in the vases next to his mother's and father's graves, he would go to whatever meetings he had that day, and never think back.

On his way to the crypt, a noise in the grass caught is attention. Something falling. No. Someone.

Lex Luthor was kneeling on the ground, his eyes unseeing, unmoving. He must have been following him. Bruce couldn't help but feel exasperated with the kid. Not on this day. He walked his way. The kid stood up when he reached him. Bruce put a hand on his shoulder to help him keep balance. "Lex, what are you doing here? Are you feeling okay?" He didn't answer, he raised his eyes to him, nodded and started running towards the house before he could say anything else. "Lex, come back. Lex." Bruce called and called but the kid just kept on running.

Maybe his tone was a little too brusque. He looked at where he was headed. The kid must have freaked out. Bruce couldn't blame him. He tightened his grip on the flowers and resumed his way.

The graves were the same way he remembered. The white marble, touched by time, was turning grey and green, but the names of his parents was still gleaming in silver. Bruce took the old and dried flowers from the vases and replaced them carefully with the fresh ones. For a second, he touched his mother's name carved in the stone. Martha. How he loved her and how he missed her. He retrieved his hand like an electric current passed through him. His sorrow was unfathomable. The tears started pouring from his eyes without permission. He would never recover. How could he?

He started walking to the house. All he wanted was to give his parents some peace. One day the murderer was gonna be caught. And he was gonna be there to make sure he would pay for what he did to his family. But Gotham legal system failed him all this years. He had no hope for any real justice. He would have to do it himself.

One way or another justice was going to be made.


	2. Chapter 2

Lex had been going from Gotham to Metropolis almost everyday for the last two years. He continued to go to his old school. It's what his father wanted, so he did it. When he visited him in prison, Alexander Luthor would ask how school was going and Lex would ramble about whatever he was learning that week. When he stood up to leave, his father would pat him in the back and say "Don't let your mother down, Jr.. You have to make her proud." He would always say those words to him, but Lex knew he didn't mean his "mother".

Life at the Wayne Manor was steady. He got up in the morning, ate breakfast with the other kids, and went to school. At first, Alfred would drive him there, until he learned to take the train. He always preferred to go alone. Sometimes, after school, he would go to Gotham. He wasn't scared anymore, and now he knew the city as well as he knew Metropolis. When he returned home, he would study in the library with the other kids. He would often help them, especially the little ones. They liked him, or the candy he usually brought from the city. And then they wouldn't bother him anymore.

He didn't really had made any friends there. The ones closer to his age would avoid him. At first, they used to sneer at him - for his money, for his manners, for his hair… One boy named Clint tried to cut it in his sleep. He woke in time to hold the wrist that held the scissors above his head. But he always kept silent about that matter. (As always, really. All his life he had to keep his mouth shut.) But it did not go unnoticed. One day, Mr. Wayne called Clint and his gang to the library, and after that the teasing stopped. It was probably Alfred who warned him. He always seemed to know everything.

But in no way it meant Mr. Wayne and Alfred liked him or trusted him. No. He could see in the way they looked at him they thought he was a nuisance, a burden, a handful. It was true, Lex recognized that.

Over the last two years Lex developed a love for the sciences. He made his room into a laboratory. He would buy the materials he needed in the city, and with the help of a little girl called Casey, he would do any kind of experiment. At first he would replicate the simple ones they did at school. But is wasn't enough. He started reading whatever books he could find in the Wayne collection. The old ones were the most fascinating. Biology. Medicine. Chemistry. Physics. Geology. Astronomy.

His father's company relied upon technology. He would have to step up his game. The man who was in charge now was "competent" (as his father told him), but not a visionary. That was Lex's job. When he reached the age of eighteen he would have to enter LexCorp Industries with a set of revolutionary ideas, or his legacy would die.

However, experiments meant accidents - and there were a few of note - a few that would put him into trouble. A hole in a wall. Rats running around the Manor. One kid bitten. Someone's eyebrows burning off. Some skin burns. A small fire. Bunnies getting sick. The kids started to fear him.

Alfred - of course - had warned Mr. Wayne, who almost never was home. Between trips to other countries, business meetings and long nights in his office in the city, Bruce Wayne had no time for the orphans living in his house.

One night, Bruce Wayne knocked on his door and entered before he could answer.

After the "crypt incident", Mr. Wayne talked to him. Words about overcoming grief, resilience. Empty words, Lex thought. His sad, melancholic eyes betrayed him.

But now Bruce Wayne's eyes were enraged. He looked around, the rage in his eyes dissipating for a bit - he kind of looked impressed… Until his eyes rested on Lex.

"Lex, what is going on here?" His words barely concealed his anger.

He was going to speak again, but Lex intervened. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne. I'm afraid I transformed your room into a lab. See…" He gestured around him and gave him a sideways smile. "I just thought it was time I started working on something valuable to my future."

"I can see why that's important, Lex." Mr. Wayne sat on a chair next to him. His eyes had gone softer. (Lex had a way with people, he could change their minds as he wished. After all, he was just a little lonely kid.) "But you can't do that this way. You're putting in danger your friends… and the animals… You can't use them in your experiments. You have to stop. It's not right."

"Okay…" Lex looked at his shoes. "I'll get rid of everything."

"You don't have to. Just free the animals, and be more aware of safety. Your safety." Yes, no one wanted the young prodigy to be harmed. Even Bruce Wayne could have something to benefit from him.

And so he did it. He got rid of all the rabbits, bats and mouses he had in little cages. Even the insects. He freed them on to the fields. Mr. Wayne bought him a new microscope to replace his hand-me-down old one he got at an antique store. He stopped asking the kids at the Manor for help. When he had anything he wanted to test, he would go to the city with Casey, and asked the homeless kids there. They always needed the money.

In addition for his interest in science, Lex had started reading on history and religion. His mother - Lillian - was a religious woman. She always told him "God is our salvation, Lex. Pray and He will listen. Be good and He will answer." But He - whoever He was - never answered. (He probably didn't even listen.)

What he concluded from his readings was that God was inconstant. And with that he couldn't really save anyone. He sure didn't save his mother. He sure didn't save him. (And if there was a God, he had been absent from Gotham for a long time.)

A creature… A being… An entity… That held together power and goodness… Seemed unlikely. Lex had never seen those two things working together.

All he could hope for was to stand at the side that would allow him to achieve his purposes.

Rachel Dawes, future lawyer of some sort (Lex didn't really care), was Bruce Wayne's best friend. Probably his only friend. She would often visit the Wayne manor (she was the only one who did it, actually).

One afternoon, she and an agent from the Gotham P.D. arrived in a police car. Lex observed from the library window as they pulled over and entered the house. He heard them being received by Bruce Wayne, who was leading them to the library. He closed the book he was reading, grabbed it and ran to hide behind some shelves.

"We found him, Bruce. The man who killed your parents." Rachel's voice was entering through the doors, which someone closed behind them.

Lex stood on his tiptoes to look through the tops of the books in front of him. His eyes rested on Bruce Wayne, who wasn't even looking at his friend. He seemed distant, like he was staring at something no one else could see.

"Bruce, Detective Gordon is here to ask for your testimony at the trial."

"Mr. Wayne, all the help you could give will be pivotal. You were there. You are the only eye witness we got." Detective Gordon was looking at Mr. Wayne with solicitude.

Finally, Bruce Wayne got off of his lethargic state. "I already told you everything on that night, Gordon."

"Bruce, if you don't give your testimony, he won't go to jail for what he did to your parents. He'll only be prosecuted for the other crimes he committed. He'll be out in no time…"

"I wanna bury it, Rachel. I've seen how justice works here in Gotham. It failed me then, and now…" Mr. Wayne's eyes met Lex's. He stumbled backwards but managed to find balance before making any noise. "After all this time, it's just one more ghost to haunt me. And the thing about ghosts, it's that it's got to be you to destroy them." He finally looked away from him. "I can't go to the trial." And with that he left the library.

That night, Lex thought about what Mr. Wayne had said about ghosts. Lex's ghosts… His mother… His father… One dead… One alive… How could he make them rest? What would quiet them? Mr. Wayne wasn't going to do anything about his ghost, he was going to keep quiet, just like Lex did.

Maybe that was the curse of lonely boys - they had to duel with their unbeatable ghosts everyday. They would live as long as they lived.

Bruce got the gun from his father's office. It was just as he left it. It had been years since he entered that room. But not Alfred. He obviously had been there cleaning and brushing off the dust, keeping everything in its place.

He was expecting his parents murderer outside of the court house. When the police officers dragged him out he would take his shot. He was a good shot. His father and Alfred saw to that.

The murderer of his parents, who worked for the mafia, who committed crimes against the people of Gotham, was standing right in from of him. The press around him. The flashes going off. And a bang. A strident noise ringing in his ears. And the murderer fell. Blood smearing the floor. A hole in his chest. People panicking. And bruce holding the gun in his pocket.

Someone, probably sent by whoever was running the mafia currently, made the shot. And Bruce froze. A sense of horror going through his body. The sound of the shot still echoing in his brain. But not the one that killed the murderer of his parents, the one that killed his parents.

He turned his back to that scene. He walked and he walked until he reached the river. With disgust, he took the gun out of the pocket of his coat and threw in the cold, grey water.

He made a promise to himself that day. He would never kill. He was going to use his true aim at helping others. That's what his parents did. They spent their lives giving and giving to the people of Gotham, and they lost everything to it. Life was only worthy if he could help other people. Apart from that, it was hollow of meaning. And right now he was incapable of anything. What did he really know of the world? Nothing. He was raised in Gotham, but his life was one of privilege. He traveled the world, but what he experienced was the life of the privileged. If he was going to do something of meaning he had to learn the hard truths. And that wasn't going to happen where he stood.

He flew to Cairo. The backpack on his shoulder with some clothes was all he took with him. He didn't say anything to Alfred nor Rachel nor anyone. This was something he had to do alone. He needed answers. He needed to find his strength so he could do what needed to be done.


End file.
